“Ooh! I want this chair to go here, and that table to go there! That shelf looks really nice!”
There is a certain excitement to planning what your room or house will look like.
Available on the App Store and Google Play, Houzz is a beautiful app that helps you in planning and visualising what you want your space to look like, whether you are looking to renovate or just redecorate. Here’s a look at what it does.
Save Inspiring Photos To Your Ideabook
With over seven million high-res photos of home interiors and exteriors, scrolling through them feels endless and I am astonished at just how many beautiful housing concepts there are from all over the world. Tap “+ Save” on any photo you fancy and you will save it to an Ideabook that you can easily access at any time — think of it as your very own inspirational scrapbook.
If you’re as forgetful a person as I am, no worries! Houzz also lets you add in little notes about what you like about the photo to remind yourself just what it is about the design you admire in the first place.
It’s not just photos of living quarters either – Houzz has an extensive catalog of furniture and home decoration photos at its disposal that you can also save to your Ideabook. With options to filter products by country and/or manufacturer, by style (contemporary, mediterranean, rustic, etc.), or even sort them by how popular they are, finding just the right kind of shelves for my dream bedroom is as easy as pie.
Bring Design Ideas To Life With Sketch
The latest update to Android adds the previously iOS-only Sketch mode which allows you to doodle or annotate on the photos of the living spaces that you have saved. Alternatively, you can start with stock photos of empty rooms, or do what I did and take photos of your own place and go from there. Annotation options include arrows, measurements, text and helpful stickers.
In Sketch you can also create beautiful mood boards and floor plans. Furnish your photos by dragging in photos of the furniture and decor so that you can better visualise what your space will look like with all sorts of paraphernalia. In many ways, this feels like going back to art class as a kid again — making newspaper collages and just having fun tossing pictures together and seeing what sticks.
Stories & Advice
Houzz has their own newsletter and also frequently puts out articles where they provide interior design tips, interviews with builders and designers, and even tour beautiful homes. I know what you’re thinking, “Ew! I hate those annoying newsletters!” But updates don’t feel intrusive, and through these stories you can learn helpful tips like “Tidy Ways to Organise Your Rubbish and Recycling” or gain inspiration from other homes.
If you’re really really at a loss, Houzz also allows you to search for local professional interior designers and studios. If you’re the type of person that prefers to hammer away at a problem on your own, but just want a nudge in the right direction, you can share your woes on the app instead. Professional interior designers, design and manufacturing companies, or just other people using the app that might be able to help will offer advice from their own well of knowledge and experiences.
All that being said, Houzz is an incredibly useful app for helping you design your own living space or simply draw inspiration from. You won’t need your tall stack of Kinfolk magazines anymore nor fret over finding a home improvement professional.